Lyrical Tokarev, kill them all!
Magical Witch Punie-chan (Dai Mahou Touge, a.k.a. "The Great Magical Gap" in Japanese), is a shonen manga series written by Hideki Ohwada and published by Kadokawa Shoten. It was serialized in ''Ace MomoGumi from 2001 to 2007 and compiled in four tankōbon volumes.
In 2006, the manga was adapted into an Original Video Animation by Studio Barcelona. It is directed by Tsutomu Mizushima, who previously directed Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan, a better-known series with which it shares quite a few similarities in the comedy department. The show has been released in the west by Media Blasters as Magical Witch Punie-chan, but they omitted the omakes from the original. It was re-released dubbed in June 2011.
Punie Tanaka is a Princess of Magical Land, and heir to her mother's throne. However, in order to become Queen, she must spend a year in a normal Japanese High School. Besides the normal high-school troubles that you might expect, she must also deal with assassins who want to make sure her family will no longer control Magical Land, as well as competition from her two little sisters. Hilarity Ensues, but not how you might expect. Because Punie is far, FAR from being your typical Magical Girl.
As the series progresses, more characters are introduced and more and more tropes are shattered.
There's Tetsuko, the Straight Woman who can only watch in horror as Punie and all the "villains" she attracts rip apart every ounce of innocence in the world. There's Anego, the local gang leader and Punie's rival, who really doesn't stand a chance. And then there's Paya-tan, the mascot.
As a very dark deconstructive satire of the Magical Girl genre, Dai Mahou Touge constantly pushes the envelope, and then arguably sets the envelope on fire. And then it bakes the ashes into a pie, which will be delicious.
This series includes examples of:
- Abnormal Limb Rotation Range: Paya's joints can rotate 360 degrees, rendering (most) submission holds useless. Punie resorts to crushing the immobile sutures in his skull.
- Action Girl: Most of the time, Punie ends up relying on her extraordinary wrestling abilities rather than her magic, due to the presence of Power Nullifiers.
- America Saves the Day. Oh so parodied. Paya and an American helicopter pilot do help stop the detonation of a magical nuke, but their, er, methods entail considerable collateral damage.
- And Then What?: Punie points out to her sisters that, if they do defeat her, they will then have to fight one another for the throne. It is a distraction and recognized as such.
- Arc Words: "Submission is the Princess' way!" It's not what it sounds like. Rather, "submission" in this case refers to submission wrestling techniques.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: At one point, Punie's sisters summon a giant God named Zepheil Ietsura. Unfortunatly for them, Punie still beats him, and it's revealed she did so once before, too.
- Book Dumb: Despite being of highschool age, Punie's educational level is at kindergarten level.
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Most prominently in the Omake, when Tetsuko inquires about the apparently fascist Magical Land, as well as the peasant uprisings. Punie just smiles and continues like nothing ever happened.
- Bring My Brown Pants: In all three of their attempts to defeat Punie, both Pyun and Potaru piss themselves once things stop going their way.
- By the Power of Grayskull!:
- "Lyrical Tokarev, kill them all!"
- Her mother's is "Lyrical Tokarev, No Boy No Cry."
- Her sisters have, oddly enough, "Lyrical Tokarev, Destruction of Evil". In the dub, it's a more reasonable (by the standards the Tanaka family seems to have, at least) "Lyrical Tokarev, Destroy Everything!"
- Casting Gag: Punie's mother previously voiced Magical Princess Minky Momo, which is subtly referenced when she goes on about the other witches she beat.
- The Chew Toy: Anego. Seriously, she can never catch a break, even when Punie is trying to help her.
- Comedic Spanking: Punie's sisters are on the receiving end of spanking, which is played for laughs.
- Crazy-Prepared: Punie finds out she's going to have a pair of younger twin sisters. What does she do? Start training to learn to fight two opponents at once.
- Credits Running Sequence: One during the opening that switches to some nightmarish stuff, including the aftermath of a World War 2 battle in a snowy country and a Roman arena that shows some lions eating a corpse.
- Dancing Theme: Punie performs a cute little dance in the OP, while historical monuments are ablaze in the background. In the fourth and final portion, she even does the YMCA dance.
- Dark Magical Girl: Elise; but since this is a parody, she's actually a lot nicer and more heroic than our horrible "heroine".
- What Punie is when she drops the nice princess act. However since this series is a parody, all of Punie's acts of villainy are Played for Laughs. Interestingly, Punie is both a Magical Girl and Dark Magical Girl at the same time as (unlike her mother) Punie seems to be completely genuine when's she's being nice or serious.
- Deceptively Silly Title: The English title brings to mind other cutesy Magical Girl works aimed at young girls, but it's really a Black Comedy that contrasts a cute art style with brutal violence. This isn't so much the case with the original Japanese title, Dai Mahou Touge, which is a reference to The Sword of Doom (known in Japanese as Dai-bosatsu Touge).
- Deconstructive Parody: The series collects so many dramatic, nightmarish and oppressive clichés, as far as possible, in order then to bring them to absurdity within the framework of satire.
- Defeat Means Friendship:
- Anego becomes pretty chummy with Punie after the first episode, although it seems more like a grudging admiration of Punie's viciousness than a real friendship.
- Elise joins Punie's class after being defeated, and helps Anego carry Tetsuko out of the school after an accident. She's probably not too friendly with Punie, though.
- Determinator:Anego falls neatly into this category. She regularly shakes off broken limbs, including a broken neck, which she's even shown snapping back into place.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Punie does this before the series begins. One of her foes is an elder god who she had beaten up and done horrible things to previously, and he runs away in fear when he realizes it's Punie that he's fighting again.
- Dirty Coward: Punie’s father, despite looking like a typical punk from Fist of the North Star, who were notable for being foolhardily brave, is a coward who starts worrying whenever the slightest thing doesn’t go his way. He contrasts well with Esmerelda, who spends most of her screen time being serenely calm.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Rina Sato performs both the opening and ending theme of the series. In a sharp contrast, while the opening is sung in a cheerful and happy-go-lucky tone (though the lyrics are anything but friendly), indicating Punie's fake personality, the ending is performed in a much more deeper, solemn and somber way (with the lyrics talking about how Punie is going to destroy her enemies), referencing her true nature.
- Everybody's Dead, Dave: The sport's festival's conclusion. Anego and Punie's sisters has successfully destroyed Punie's army, and are pursuing her. At this point, Punie tearfully admits that the era of traditional combat is past...and now begins the age of gunpowder. Cue her horse leaping over lines of reserve troops with flintlock rifles, who proceed to kill more or less the entire student body. Anego is the only survivor, and even she keels over after a final word. Shortly thereafter, Punie's sisters are shown captured...and Punie spanks them for "not being nice". Fortunately for everyone else, it seems Anego's Highlander-esque immortality is a common trait for the rest of the students, and they're right as rain next episode.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The delinquents call their female boss "Anego" ("Big sister" — the female equivalent of "Aniki"), which is perfectly normal. But then, everyone starts calling her this way for some reason. Does she even have a name? The name tag on her gym uniform even has the hiragana for Anego.
- Evil Sounds Deep: Punie's voice deepens when she drops the cutesy princess act. Especially apparent in the English dub where Punie's VA Veronica Taylor has her voice drop like a rock.
- Flower Motifs: The opening begins with a budding Clematis
bloom, and then goes to a variety of spinning blossoms. Anyone with a passing knowledge of floriculture can tell you that all of those flowers are incredibly toxic. - God Save Us from the Queen!: As bad as Punie is, her mother the queen is worse.
- Grail in the Garbage: The Book of the Dead was found by Pyun and Potaru in an online auction.
- Grotesque Cute: Watch the first episode and then try to peel a potato or cut up a carrot or eat any sort of fruit or vegetable. It's a pretty depressing behind-the-scenes at Benihana.
- Gunship Rescue: Done by Colonel Paya Livingston aboard an attack chopper, complete with Ride of The Valkyries-esque music playing in the background. It devastates Punie's classroom and even injures a few students for real. It is all to prevent Punie from failing her math test. Granted, it's that or Punie will nuke everything within 1 Astronomical Unit* to prevent anybody knowing that she sucks in math.
- Harmless Villain: Up until the last episode, everyone except for Paya-tan, who put up a rather good fight can't do anything to Punie. This has less to do with them being weak as with Punie winning the Superpower Lottery.
- Henpecked Husband: The King, whose role is often reduced to either crying about his daughters (and brutally shut up by Esmerelda quickly after) or being used as Esmerelda's chair.
- Improbable Weapon User: Punie's younger twin sisters attack with a giant pair of scissors.
- Informed Ability - Punie's submission techniques mostly work because most of her opponents obviously didn't learn the (relatively simple) defenses against them. Letting her walk up to you is not a good idea, for example.
- Invincible Villain: Punie never loses a single fight in the entire series. And it’s implied her mother is even more powerful than she is.
- Karma Houdini: Punie and her parents (or at least her mother since her father is pretty unlucky himself). Even her sisters got off easy considering all of their devastating attempts on her life (going from summoning a Physical God who smashed the school in half to having their team of the students massacre Punie's in an attempt on her life).
- Kryptonite Factor: The reason Punie keeps resorting to her submission techniques is because everyone and their dog seems to have access to the evil doll that can seal off her magical powers. It is subverted in that if anything, this only makes the ensuing beatdown worse.
- Let's Meet the Meat: Or, rather, the anthropomorphic talking vegetables. "Potato-donooooooo!"
- Like Father, Like Son: Punie is certainly following her mother's path of brutality and evil.
- Lyrical Dissonance: The Opening Theme song, which is upbeat and cheery up until the first chorus, and then it just gets worse from there.
- Magical Girl Queenliness Test: Coming to Earth is part of Punie's training to become Queen, which also appears to include killing lots of people.
- Meaningful Name: Tetsuko means "train girl," and she happens to be a member (in fact, the only member) of the Train Club at school.
- Mouthy Kid: Punie's little sisters are extremely rude.
- Muggle Best Friend: Tetsuko is Punie's powerless earth friend, although why she sticks around is anyone's guess.
- Overnight Age-Up: Pyun and Potaru find a recipe from the Book of the Dead that turns themselves into hot twenty-somethings in the final episode. When Punie gets them to empty their bowels, they instantly turn back to normal.
- Only Sane Man: Anego is the only one who treats Punie with the proper amount of paranoia she warrants.
- Parody Sue: Punie would be a Mary Sue except she lacks... what do you call it... oh yeah, morality. Possibly also a
Jerk Sue. - Pretty Princess Powerhouse: Punie is a cute little princess who wears a cute dress and headband, and who wrestles her enemies into submission. Indeed, "Submission is the Princess' way!"
- Princess Protagonist: Subverted. Princess Punie Tanaka looks like the typical heroic Magical Girl princess, yet she's a maniacal Big Bad Villain Protagonist.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning:
- Punie has a red eye motif on her Transformation Trinket, her Magic Wand, and her headband, and her mother has one on her crown. Hmmm...
- The queen herself has extremely creepy red eyes with no irises or pupils.
- Secret Test of Character: In the last episode in that Punie is expected to use deviousness to win against her now overpowered sisters. Punie passes with flying colors.
- Seppuku: In the scene linked under Let's Meet the Meat, a potato gets angry that some vegetables are scared of jumping into the cooking pot. He performs the seppuku ceremony (with a peeler instead of a knife), then peals himself and jumps in while saluting his fellow vegetables.
- Shout-Out: Lots.
- The original Japanese title, Dai Mahou Touge, is itself a reference to the film The Sword of Doom, which in Japanese is known as Dai-bosatsu Touge.
- The Necronomicon Ex Mortis apparently has a recipe for cupcakes. An older reference from the first episode is from Oishinbo as 'Kaibara' and 'Shirou' are eating the magical train curry. There's also a helicopter scene straight out of Apocalypse Now, complete with Walkürenritt.
- There's an extended shoutout to films Platoon, Apocalypse Now, and Full Metal Jacket when Paya is asked if he's returning to the Army - specifically, that of an ambush in Platoon, Paya-as-Willard rising out of the mud, and Paya killing the VC sniper. And the iconic Russian Roulette scene from The Deer Hunter.
- The driving sequence in Episode 6 is a direct Shout-Out to Initial D, complete with Punie implying that the bad driver she summoned was a fan of the manga and the same style of 2D Visuals, 3D Effects that marked its anime derivation.
- The thing that nullifies Punie's magic power? A deity statue/figurine shaped like a Gundam head.
- When Punie's mother is listing other witches she beat out for the throne, she mentions "Akko, Sally, Megu, and Momo."
- Incidentally, notice that she pauses before saying Momo. That's because her voice actor was Momo.
- Sickening "Crunch!": As seen
here. Not for the faint of heart. - Snake Versus Mongoose: In Episode 3, Elise summons some cobras to attack Punie, who summons some mongoose to counter this. The result is a rather gory scene of the mongoose killing and eating the cobras.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: Punie does this a couple of times, when she's about to do something horrible to Anego.
- Summon Magic: Pyun and Potaru can summon a demonic god with the help of a magic ring.
- Superpowered Evil Side: Paya never shows off his abilities unless he's speaking in his Paya Livingston voice.
- Tareme Eyes / Tsurime Eyes: Punie has the former when she's in cutesy mode and the latter when she shows her true colors.
- Title Drop: Punie sings "Dai Mahou Touge" at one point in the full version of the opening theme.
- Tom the Dark Lord: The name of the brutally violent royal family of Magical Land? Tanaka, one of the most common Japanese surnames out there.
- Verbal Tic: Paya adds "-paya" to all his sentences whenever he's in cutesy mode.
- Villain Protagonist: If you couldn't guess from her incantation, Punie is not quite as good as she first appears. Her mother is even worse, if only because of her experience.
- With My Hands Tied: Handcuffs are no match for Punie-chan!
- Wondertwin Powers: Punie's little sisters use the two halves of the Ring of Immoral in this fashion.
- Wrestler in All of Us: Punie uses submission wrestling moves.
- You Killed My Father: It was Esmeralda who overthrew Elisa's Barbaroque family and it's Elisa who wants revenge, not Punie.
